You’ve got to hand it to Google: they built a web-based RSS client so good that many similar services simply closed up shop, realizing they couldn’t compete. Sure, when Google removed the sharing function from Reader in 2011 it upset a lot of people, but for the most part Google has dominated the RSS field so completely it was hard for anyone to point to a rival.

If you’re looking to simplify the transition as much as possible – and still be able to keep using Google Reader, for now, without going out of sync – Feedly is probably your current best bet. Head to Feedly.com to get started.

Newsblur: For A Complete Google Reader Alternative

Feedly is great, but it does require a browser extension. If you don’t like that, but still want a service with a quick way to grab feeds from Google Reader, NewsBlur might be right for you. It offers an import tool, apps for Android and iOS and quite a few features for discovering content.

The downside: the full version limits the numbers of feeds you can add. Their servers have been slammed due to the recent news, so for a while the limit will be 12 – after that, 64. The paid version eliminates this limitation, of course. Check out NewsBlur.com for more information, or to sign up or read our quick Newsblur review.

The Old Reader: For Something Familiar

Want to set up something simple, but with the sharing Google Reader used to offer? Check out The Old Reader, a web-based feed reader created after Google’s 2011 decision to remove the sharing feature in favor of Google Plus. Its interface is almost identical to that of the pre-2011 Google Reader, and you can even import (not sync) your feeds from Google’s dying service.

And as I said earlier: this reader brings back the “share” functionality beloved by Google Reader users. Of course, this is only really useful if you convince your friends to switch to The Old Reader — not a sure thing. But if you can get them to use your service you just might be in luck. The down side: there’s no mobile versions, as of yet.

Skimr isn’t an RSS per se, but it is a very clean way to read a variety of sites.

Feedafever attempts to point out which items are “hot”, meaning popular. Not free.

CollectedInfo allows anyone to create a collection of feeds about any topic.

Did I miss something? Let everyone know in the comments below. I could keep going, but why not check out our RSS tag? It includes many feed readers, only most of which require a Google Reader account to functions (Man, a lot of third party apps are going to break…)

None of these is a perfect replacement, but of course there are more coming. Digg recently announced plans to build a replacement – complete with an API – and you can be sure they’re not the only company out there that would like to gain the users Google is ditching. Stay tuned – we’ll keep you up to date regarding the best Google Reader replacements. Subscribe to our RSS feeds on Google Reader to….oh wait.

Dammit.

A Tune You Know

A long long time ago
I can still remember how that content used to make me smile
And I knew if I had the time I could check those feeds of mine
And maybe feel informed, just for a while
But March 13 it made me shiver with every feed that was delivered
Bad news on the front page I was filled with blind rage

I can’t remember if I cussed
When I read I should use Google Plus
Twitter made the biggest fuss
The day the Reader died

And we were tweetin’
Bye bye aggregator in the sky
I really need to check my feed but the Reader’s gone dry
Those good ol’ boys shared petitions and cries, tweetin’
This’ll be how RSS dies
This’ll be how RSS dies

(Hopefully not, though – let us know what alternative you’ll be using in the comments below).

I switched to Flowreader from http://www.flowreader.com - brings me my webnews and my social accounts feeds. I share and post on Facebook and Twitter through it (Facebook will be off in May though as FB closes its API).

Hi, you can also try http://FeedInbox.com ,a good alternative for Google Reader and it will help you migrate all your Google Reader subscriptions as well. We are also launching the Android App soon...:)

No prob. Only thing I can't find is how to sync with the reader on my Galaxy S II. I use gReader (which is by far the best one on Android). So I have to go through the same feeds on each one. Anyway to get them synced or other readers (apart from Feedly) that have an app and browser addon?

I don't know if this will help..... When I set up Bamboo Reader I had to first Export my google feeds to a file, I think OPML (even though it didn't have that file name in my saved folder) and then Bamboo had to Import that file and my feeds were all there. So maybe you could try something of that nature on your Android - Exporting the feeds and then Importing them to another app somehow?

If you work it out, do please let me know in this thread as I have an Android Nexus 7 and I'm new to it and it would be great to have my feeds on it. :-)

Scott Belcher

March 25, 2013 at 1:11 pm

Thanks. I've seen what I did now. See, with Google Reader shutting down, I looked for another web reader to store my feeds as the source. So I found Bloglines and put all my feeds there and used this as the source in Bamboo Reader, not Google. So now I need to find an Android app that allows connecting to Bloglines as the source instead of Google, so that they both sync and show what I've read/not read. I've been searching but nothing yet...

justinpot

March 25, 2013 at 3:03 pm

Scott: there are multiple companies working on cloning the Reader API, so all sorts of programs like this should be functional with Feedly, Digg or whatever server you want to use with them come July.

Glenn

March 23, 2013 at 1:57 pm

Thunderbird has RSS support built-in. Reading a feed is pretty much like reading email after all.

I'm using Feedly. I had tried it a couple of times before, but was put off by the magazine layout. But having tried it again, I like it much better. For one thing, it syncs flawlessly with my Google Reader content, even importing my starred items, which as far as I know, no other service does as of yet. Plus once you look at the settings it's very customizable, even on a per feed basis. For feeds that have a lot of attractive visual content, I can keep the magazine like layout (of which there are several different flavors: magazine, mosaic, and cards) but for feeds that are basically just articles, I use the titles view, which is pretty much exactly like Reader's list view. Yes, it doesn't archive every feed to the beginning of time like Reader did, but honestly I rarely used that in Reader. If I think I'm going to need something later, I just click the save link or bookmark icon in Feedly and it saves it in my Saved list, just like the star function in Reader.

I tried a couple of other things, like Netvibes and Newsblur, but I like Feedly the best.

I looked at Fever, but their emphasis was on predicting what it thought would be the most interesting (hot) posts. I just want every full post from every feed in reverse chronological order. I want to read them on my iPhone, my iPad, and my chrome browser and sync read items. I'm not sure how much of a power user I am, but I probably get about 600 articles a day from all RSS sources, then I read Zite articles, Flipboard Tech, some Google+ and a few others.

I used to use LiveJournal as a feed reader, but there's no read/unread there, just time stamps, and no way to import OPML, just add new feeds if you are a paid user.

I'm kinda hoping that Google decides to just fold Google Reader into Google+. They fit together pretty well, and then they would have a huge number of sharable items and a lot more site stickiness.

justinpot

March 19, 2013 at 2:19 pm

Also, my fault for misunderstanding. You were specific.

Nevzat A

March 19, 2013 at 6:51 am

I'm on feedly by now, however I suspect and hope that Google will decide Reader to live, somehow. There are millions of people out there, begging for it.

I tried Feedly, but if I read back more than an hour or two it would start to drag down my PC (i7, 8gb ram, solid specs) from opening it in a browser. I don't know if they are using too much JS or what but it was a hog. I also tried it on my Chromebook (the $249 one), and more than about a dozen articles started to run the risk of crashing Chrome.

Because off the Internet everyone is talking about Netvibes. Local news, radio, the newspapers...cannot stop talking about it.

In all seriousness, I looked into this and it didn't seem like a one to one replacement for Reader. It seems like a tool for analyzing social media activity, and I can't see any mention of a feed reader. Is there one? Let me know. I'm pretty sure someone on staff is working on an article about it, but if not I'll write one.

Import your feeds from Reader, then at the top there's a button to switch from "Widget" to "Reader" view. After I tweaked it so I'm viewing everything in expanded view, it looks and operates pretty much the same as Google Reader. So I guess yes, it's a feed reader. (I just switched over, this was the best one I found to use)

Netvibes does it for me. All the other interesting ones either charge (Newsblur) or are too flasy (Feedly, Flipboard), or don't provide user accounts and require you to give up your Facebook / Google account (Feedly, The Old Reader).

Netvibes it is, at least until feedly or the old reader open to other authentication measures.

Wait! I've forgotten Opera browser... I used it before Google Reader for reading feeds (but not only for feeds, of course). This feature in Opera seems to me quite primitive, but pretty effective. That's it.

Justin Pot is a technology journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He loves technology, people and nature – and tries to enjoy all three whenever possible. You can chat with Justin on Twitter, right now.